Average PC damage per hit?

[Rechan]

I know there are folks out there who love crunching numbers. I'm sure there are those who have done the math.

What is the average damage PCs do per attack? I'm sure it differs based on role (and class), and whether it's an A/E/D; I'm cool with hearing the variance. I'm sure someone out there has done the math.

 

[Dice4Hire]

That is a whole lot of math.

 

[Dalamar]

I did do the math for the specific PCs in the game I run, and I could dig up the numbers in a couple of days if somebody is interested in those.

 

[MrBeens]

Surely you need to lower the variables a little? Level, role etc?

 

[OnlineDM]

Hmm, back of the envelope here. I'll assume an 18 post-racial primary ability (optimizers will likely go with a 20, plus feats that help with damage, etc.).

Defender: Figure a fighter or paladin swinging a longsword, that's d8+4 at first level for an at-will, which works out to 8.5 damage per hit as a baseline. If you optimize for damage, you could push that up to d12+6 (20 primary stat plus weapon focus and a fancy weapon) without too much trouble, which would be 12.5 damage.

Leader: Similar to the defender in general; less likely to go as high on the optimization.

Controller: Single target would be similar to the leader, I'd say, but multi-target will depend on the number of targets, of course. This discounts the impact of conditions, obviously.

Striker: Figure a rogue dealing sneak attack damage with a short sword; that's going to be 1d6+2d6+4 non-optimized, for 14.5 damage per hit. A Twin Striking ranger with a longbow and Hunter's Quarry will be 2d10+1d6 or again, 14.5 (but both attacks need to hit). A slayer or thief is going to be similar; something like a warlock is going to be lower. Optimizing will bump this up a few points at first level, probably closer to 20.

So, I'd say a baseline is 9 points per at-will hit for most characters at first level, and add another 6 for a good striker. Encounter or dailies will be higher, naturally. Optimization can easily push this up higher still. I'd guess this will end up scaling fairly linearly with level, but I haven't done any math on that.

 

[Rechan]

Well for instance the average of rogue sneak attack, etc. I'm just thinking of generalities.

Perhaps I should change the question. How many hits on average does a monster take before it dies? Setting aside dailies.

There are three monster HP groups - low (at 1st level, 24) - Medium (at first level, 30) and high (at first level, 38). How many hits does it take each group to die?

The reason I ask is because I was thinking of changing monster HP from a specific number to "number of hits"*. A minion dies after 1 hit. A regular monster dies after x hits (vary by role, dailies count as 2 hits, strikers likely take off 2 hits). Elites are twice what a normal monster would take.

*This would be purely a behind-the-DM-Screen thing. I wouldn't let players onto this, just easier than tracking individual HP.

 

[the Jester]

The reason I ask is because I was thinking of changing monster HP from a specific number to "number of hits"*. A minion dies after 1 hit. A regular monster dies after x hits (vary by role, dailies count as 2 hits, strikers likely take off 2 hits). Elites are twice what a normal monster would take.

*This would be purely a behind-the-DM-Screen thing. I wouldn't let players onto this, just easier than tracking individual HP.

I don't know that this is a very good idea. Even if you count encounter attacks as 2 hits and dailies as 3, the fact is, two encounter powers of the same class and level often deal different damage, because the "extras" vary significantly.

Leaders and controllers have a fair number of powers that don't even do damage, and some are dailies.

I think you'd be setting yourself up for a lot more headaches than you would solve, personally.

 

[Rechan]

Leaders and controllers have a fair number of powers that don't even do damage, and some are dailies.

True, but if the players don't report damage, then you wouldn't touch the monster's HP totals either.

Ultimately it might just depend on the party. The question of power choice would be easily addressed by knowing what the players can do. If no one has a daily that does more damage than an encounter, frex.

 

[Psikus]

Oddly enough, I've been working on this very issue the last days, for a future blog post. I have a bunch of notes and a spreadsheet, but it will take a lot of rewriting and formatting before they can be read and understood by anyone other than me.

Anyway, here is what I've got.

The first thing to keep in mind is that any estimation of average PC damage is a gross simplification. Virtually every variable in a PC build affects damage, including level, class, build, power selection, feat selection, theme, gear, and a bunch of other thing. So I tried to come up with the bare minimum numbers, the kind of damage you'd get from a character that was not optimized, but not deliberately unoptimized, either. I use the following assumptions:

• - Starting 18 on primary score. Gets a +2 increase at epic from epic destiny.
• We look at a PC at levels 1,6,11,16,21,26, and 21.
• The PC pays his taxes: he takes expertise and focus.
• The PC gains a +2 magic weapon/implement at level 6, and upgrades it at every 6 levels thereafter. At level 6 he also gains gear granting a +2 item bonus to damage (IAoP / Staff of Ruin), which increases to +4 at lv.16 and +6 at lv.26.
• At-will attacks hit for 1d8 + primary mod. I round the average of the damage die to 5 because I find that half point of damage everywhere annoying.
• Encounters deal an extra 5 damage at levels 1-7, 10 damage at levels 11-17, and 15 damage at levels 23-27.
• No other modifiers are considered.

That gives us the damage figures for an unoptimized non-striker with no real focus on damage.

Level Hit% Dmg. on AW hit
1 0.6 9
6 0.65 14
11 0.65 17
16 0.65 21
21 0.7 30
26 0.65 33
30 0.6 34

I also calculated damage for a basic unoptimized striker, using the same assumptions as above (i.e. no extra damage from feats, items, PPs and other factors is considered), but assuming that all its attack powers have some extra damage. This striker would hit for the same damage as the previous PC plus:

• An extra 3 damage/tier, from striker extra damage feature.
• An extra 3 damage/tier, from powers.

This amounts to a 6 damage/tier difference between striker and non-striker, which is roughly equivalent to what you'd get from a d6/tier (striker feature) plus a secondary mod added to damage in powers like Sly flourish. The numbers for this striker would be:

Level Hit% Dmg. on AW hit
1 0.6 15
6 0.65 20
11 0.65 29
16 0.65 33
21 0.7 48
26 0.65 51
30 0.6 52

So for these (unoptimized and simplified!) characters, the striker would be dealing 50% more damage than the non-striker.

I then compared these figures with the stats of a monster of the PC's level, ending up with the following values for at-will DPR, turns to kill a monster with at-will attacks, and turns to kill a monster with at-wills and encounters.

Non-Striker

Level DPR K(AW) K(Enc)
1 5.65 4.96 4.07
6 9.75 6.97 5.95
11 11.9 9.08 6.97
16 14.7 10.07 8.03
21 22.5 8.36 7.69
26 23.15 9.85 8.55
30 22.1 11.76 10.41

Striker

Level DPR K(AW) K(Enc)
1 9.25 3.03 2.49
6 13.65 4.98 4.25
11 19.70 5.48 4.21
16 22.50 6.58 5.24
21 35.10 5.36 4.93
26 34.85 6.54 5.68
30 32.90 7.90 6.99

So, at worst, the unoptimized non-striker PC should kill a monster in ~4 attacks at level 1 and ~10 at level 30, and the equivalent striker would do it in 2.5 attacks at level 1, and 7 at level 30.

These numbers are about what I'd expect for heroic characters, but have awfully long encounters at epic. Then again, any kind of optimization should increase the damage substantially. At any rate, this provides a handy guideline for the worst case scenario.

I also have run the numbers for higher level monsters, but this is going too long already

 

[kerbarian]

The reason I ask is because I was thinking of changing monster HP from a specific number to "number of hits"*. A minion dies after 1 hit. A regular monster dies after x hits (vary by role, dailies count as 2 hits, strikers likely take off 2 hits). Elites are twice what a normal monster would take.

*This would be purely a behind-the-DM-Screen thing. I wouldn't let players onto this, just easier than tracking individual HP.

If what you want is simpler tracking of monster health behind the screen, you could just round all damage to the nearest 10. It should work out pretty close to correct and be significantly easier to track. At higher levels you could round to the nearest 20, or whatever feels appropriate.